First it was a pound of coffee...

[MissMillie]

...you know, you go to the store and get a can of coffee, but it isn't a pound of coffee. It hasn't been for years.

Then it was pasta... bag or box of pasta = 1 pound. Not necessarily. Not anymore.

But this is the limit


WHY THE HELL ISN'T A HALF GALLON OF ICE CREAM 1/2 GALLON??????!!!!!!!!!

Something must be done to stop this.

[Phoenix61]

1. And a pint isn't a pint anymore.

I’m actually rather glad about that as I have absolutely no self control when it comes to ice cream.

[MissMillie]

4. I love ice cream, but can only eat a little at a time

I could make 1/2 gallon last quite a while, if my guy didn't eat it all.

It's a money thing. The price of 1/2 gallon hasn't gone down, even though it's not 1/2 gallon.

[Ohiogal]

5. And the idea

that they think we are too dumb to see what they’re doing!

[getagrip_already]

36. ever seen a pint sized ice cream koozie?

Those aren't for big beer cans.... There is only one use - turning a pint into a single serving.

Enjoy the guilt.

[Phoenix61]

47. I do, every time I buy one. nt

[GP6971]

2. And a 5 lb bag of sugar

is now 4 lbs.

[Phentex]

15. Yep...

that's what I was going to say.

[Rorey]

3. I think those 1/2 gallons are getting smaller and smaller

Soon a pint will be the bigger size.

[Midnight Writer]

6. If we used metric measures, those changes would be obvious even to the oblivious.

Most Americans don't know how many grams to an ounce or how many ounces in a quart.

[handmade34]

7. we keep buying...

I am in the middle of significant research into marketing and how incredibly deceptive (and successful) it is

article from 2012

https://www.equities.com/news/your-favorite-brands-have-sneakily-been-reducing-package-sizes

Reducing portion or package sizes may seem trivial to some people, while others cry foul. There is a method afoot for companies to reduce product sizes of everything from bacon to Pepsi (PEP). As far as I can tell, there has been a concerted effort to reduce sizes since 2011...consumers were told that smaller sizes were better for the environment and your health.

According to the NY Times, product reduction is so widespread and significant that it’s nearly impossible to disguise it. The general consensus is that people get upset for a minute but still buy their Oreo’s anyway, because they can’t do anything about it. Manufacturers want more money, and they feel that if they raise prices people will revolt, so they diminish the size of the product hoping we won’t notice – shame on them. Some even reduce the size and still increase the price! Consumers realize costs are increasing, but camouflaging price increases through subterfuge doesn’t make us trust these people... as if we ever did. I’ve seen products that have added indentations to the design of the can or bottle that, in effect, reduces the product inside while making the exterior somehow more appealing to the consumer. That’s downright deceitful.

The bottom line is that sellers of products must be hiring psychologists to market to us hoping we can be fooled into believing we are getting value for our dollar. The truth is; the products we grew up with have no semblance of the products we now consume. They have been modified in look and form, hydrogenated, GMO’d, substituted and are not the products we remember – seriously!
My response? I’m not going to buy into their game.

[Flaleftist]

8. Hiding inflation. Wait until they figure out how to sell a 'gallon' of gas.

[yonder]

9. This size reduction trend drives me nuts.

Folks are paying as much (or more) for an ever decreasing product size. The insidious thing is it's very hard to keep up with the reductions because they seem to decrease by oddball amounts.

One week something is 15.3 oz. or 7.8 oz., next week it may be 15.2/7.7 oz. If one buys 100 different items in the course of a year, how do you keep track? And even if you could, you're not going to have much luck bitching to the manufacturer about it, right?

Change brands? Now it's 101 items you'd have to keep track of and on and on and on.

Seems to me, (they?) have us by the balls.

End of old guy rant.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

11. You're right - my head spins every time I buy groceries.

I'm beginning to believe they've adopted the Republican technique of keeping the public's heads spinning with massive bullshit so we cannot think clearly, sort out the facts and make rational decisions.

Almost every product I buy now has numerous choices of different flavor varieties, package sizes, shapes and styles to the point where it's tempting just get disgusted and grab one and run.

Maybe that's what they want us to do.......

[True Blue American]

32. I splurged on

A bottle of Chanel Number 5. The 1.7 bottle is now 1.2.

[yonder]

40. And I'll cynically state that Chanel will claim

they're saving whales by saving ambergris so we should be thankful.

[jmowreader]

48. Ambergris has nothing to do with saving whales

It is expelled by the whale in either vomitus or feces. Then it floats to the surface and is carried by the tides to shore.

[yonder]

59. Heh, heh. Humor me. This OP got me on a corporate rant.

My point being that's exactly what I've come to expect from a corporate PR department: if they can polish the company turd with anything, true or false or new and improved, they will.

"We here at Chanel, being good environmental stewards, have adjusted our product sizes in order to preserve critical wildlife habitat while ensuring we use only the finest natural and organic Ambergris......blah, blah, blah".

To be sure, my knowledge of Ambergris is next to nothing and comes from either an old Popeye or Tom Terrific cartoon where Bluto or Crabby Appleton tries to corner the market on Ambergris. Then Popeye or Tom saves the day.

Today, we need a Popeye or a Tom Terrific on the national stage.

Thanks for the info.

[True Blue American]

51. Yes, and I found

Out there is a new Chanel 5 and an old one, the original. But it is my favorite.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

10. There's no longer honor in American business. Wall Street killed it.

Wall Street's never ending demands for increasing margins and efficiencies has literally forced businesses to be increasingly corrupt. I sense there's a prevalent "too big to fail" attitude among many of our previously well-respected companies.

Corporations have become completely detached from communities and unions, so they now answer to no one but international share holders. What used to be good customer service is now a very bad joke.

I keep wondering what's the end game?.......

[Wawannabe]

12. Bacon! Same.

Little Debbie snacks. Same.

[True Blue American]

34. 12 ounce bacon.

[LakeArenal]

35. Yes. Bacon. Almost treason.

[The Figment]

13. As a thirty year Restaurant employee...

This drives me nuts, I'm used to making food by weight not volume...pasta for example,

1 pound pasta
1 no.15 can or jar tomato sauce (16oz.)
1 lbs ground beef or ground spicy Italian sausage
2 6oz cans tomato paste
Asst. Spices

But when you go to Safeway this is what I have to buy,

2 14 oz. Boxes of pasta
2 no 6 cans fo tomato sauce (14.3 oz)
1 lbs beef or sausage
3 5.1 oz cans of tomato paste
Asst. Spices

As one can see this either throws off the recipe or I have leftover ingredients that end up sitting in the fridge or cabinet or I end up tossing the remaining ingredients in the trash...plus I now have to use a scale to weigh everything as where before all I needed was the correct size container.

Drives me nuts!

[MissMillie]

19. I was thinking of this too

Pasta recipes often call for 1 lb. of pasta, and a box or bag is now 12 oz.


There are some items that when we shop we actually shop by unit price--most especially laundry detergent, dish detergent, body wash.

I refuse to buy any kind of "pod" laundry detergent. I can measure out my own soap.

[True Blue American]

46. The only time I buy Pod is when they have

Tiny boxes on sale to try.

[yonder]

23. That's a whole other aspect

of what I was bitching about upthread which didn't occur to me. (I don't cook much). Adjusting recipes to account for those odd product sizes AND THEN having to measure out and accommodate for any left over. What a time killer. And it doesn't cost the manufacturer anything for THEIR change. They'll likely even sell more product too.

Yep, they got folks by the short hairs while they claim the consumer has more choice. More bucks for those with more bucks. Fascist BS, IMO.

[Lindsay]

39. That's my main issue with the changes as well.

I still use some old family recipes, and some treasured cookbooks from the 70s and 80s. But now I've got to deal with smaller package sizes in the store before I even think about cooking.

[highplainsdem]

43. Yes. This has messed up a lot of recipes from older cookbooks.

[Laffy Kat]

14. And cereal!

The boxes are getting thinner and the price is the same.

[LakeArenal]

38. 45 years ago when we first married

we lived on cereal and baloney sandwiches

We would be living on raman noodles and water today.

[True Blue American]

49. You sure could not afford baloney

My Mother used to send me to the store on my bike for 10 cents worth of baloney. Probably half a Lb. or more.

[Fla Dem]

16. This has been going on for several years. Annoys me no end.

So they cut a few ounces from a 1/2 gallon, a pint, a lb. Doesn't seem like much, but we end up paying the same for the smaller amount. And you think, Really! But then you think it through, it's just not the 1-3 ounces they cut from the ice cream, milk, coffee container you're buying, it's from the millions of units they're selling everyday. Oh and canned good too. Canned vegetables and soup are no longer 16 oz. Most have gone to 14.5 oz.

So we're paying the same or more in some cases, while the producers are piling up the extra ounces to package and sell to us. Just think about that. 100,000 pkgs of coffee at 14 ounces instead of 16 ounces. That's 200,000 extra ounces they get to package in 14 ounce bags and sell to us at $7.99. An additional 14,285 bags at $7.99 = $114,137.

I try to buy the packages with the full amount even if it costs me a little more.

[True Blue American]

50. Some bacon comes in 1 Lb. Or 2.

Aldi’s.

[lpbk2713]

17. Publix ice cream is still sold in the half gallon size.

It's pretty good too.

[MissMillie]

20. We don't have pubix in my part of the country

And we've also noticed that a lot of store-brand "ice cream" isn't ice cream. It's labelled "frozen dessert." Not "frozen yogurt," "ice cream," or "gelato."

"Frozen dessert." WTF is THAT?

[yonder]

25. Good question so stay away.

Frozen soylent desert could be people.

[SoCalNative]

53. Basically

frozen dessert is made from frozen vegetable oil fats instead of milk fats.

[JCMach1]

45. In ice cream they pump more air into the mixture

Substitute other thingsm for cream so you get that 'mouthfeel'

[Wounded Bear]

18. One reason I shop at Cosco...

A 3 pound can of coffee weighs
.
.
.
.
wait for it
.
.
.
.
48 ounces.

[MissMillie]

21. That can be very helpful, for sure

And coffee is one of the things that if we purchased that much of it, we'd use it up.

But we really do pinch pennies, and my guy falls into this trap:

"Look! 40 rolls of paper towels for $30! That's a GREAT buy!"

Yes it is, but it will take us 6 or 7 months to use 40 rolls of paper towels. And if we spend $30 this month on paper towels, we may not have enough money to buy all the eggs we need, or all the coffee we need, or the toothpaste we need, etc. for THIS month. I'd rather pay the 5 cents more per roll if it means we're going to have enough to buy the other stuff we need.

One month he purchased a dozen packages of hot dogs because he got such a great price on them. And he did get a great price on them. But because of having X amount of dollars to spend on food every month, the only other protein he purchased (FOR THE WHOLE MONTH) was 1 lb. of ground beef and 1 whole chicken.

I do almost all the cooking. I don't know of that many different ways to use hot dogs. (And he only got one pkg of buns)

[Wounded Bear]

22. Yeah, buying in bulk can be tricky. I shop for one...

and I don't have a lot of storage, so I have to be smart about it.

One thing I try to do, and it takes a bit to get going under this plan, is to buy one item in bulk one month and then something else the next month, so that you have a rotating stock situation. The trick is to not blow the "money you save" by buying in bulk on non-essentials, so that the situation you describe doesn't happen. With a bit of planning you can make it work. But if you are subject to impulse buying, like your guy looks to be, you want to stay away from big box stores.

[True Blue American]

55. You find that certain stores

Have certain sales.

I love Maxwell House Hazelnut. $3.64 for the small can. Once a month 5 for $10. I like the small cans because they do not go stale. But I now have $12 cans.

Kroger’s, Creamette spaghetti, 99 cents, buy 5, 49 cents.

[LakeArenal]

41. Hot dogs go into

Baked beans, macaroni and cheese, bread

I’ve put them on pizza and made fake ham salad from them.

[malthaussen]

24. MAD magazine did a bit on this back in the 'fifties...

... it was supposed to be satire -- then.

-- Mal

[C_U_L8R]

26. I thought Trump was a complete idiot

but he's actually a half wit.

[highplainsdem]

28. LOL!

[MissMillie]

37. That's awesome!

good work

[LakeArenal]

42. Half? 1/4 wit? Nano wit?

[highplainsdem]

27. Those have been shrinking for years. And yeah, it's annoying.

What's bothering me most lately is seeing the 1-pound bags of frozen veggies shrink, when of course the prices never do.

[dchill]

29. All part of how Walmart grows and grows.

Shrinking the pound, but not the price.

[yesphan]

30. And a 2x4

is no longer a 2x4. Hasn't been for quite a while.

[WheelWalker]

33. Damn, you beat me by a nano second, LOL.

[WheelWalker]

31. Forever use to mean always, doesn't seem like it does anymore...

In a way it's as we saw lumber - what is isn't 2x4.

[JCMach1]

44. Hell, coffee is down to 10oz

[sl8]

52. And when was the last time you could collect a full pound of flesh? n/t

[DetlefK]

54. It's an easy marketing-trick: Instead of raising the price, they make the package smaller.

I noticed this with marmalade. I keep the glasses of a certain brand for storing stuff. The old glasses are 2 cm taller than the new glasses.

[virgogal]

57. Drives me nuts,tuna is smaller and now Triscuits. Do they think we're stupid?

[matt819]

56. So right

I was at the grocery store the other day and decided to try some other milks. I usually buy local milk in half gallon glass containers. One is $2.59 per half gallon, another is $3.49. Prices vary a bit by store. So, I saw Fairlife milk - lactose free, higher protein. Pretty pricey for a half gallon, but I thought why not. Give it a try. There was also a half gallon of another milk promoted as grass fed only, organic, and cows probably milked by fairies with rainbow halos. It was $5.79. Well, that wasn't going to happen, so I went for the Fairlife.

I get home and find that the half gallon isn't anywhere close. It's 52 ounces, 18% smaller than the half gallon. My fault. I just assumed milk came in quarts, half gallons, and gallons. No more. So my local milk is $2.59 per half gallon (bottle deposit excluded), and this stuff is $6.14 per half gallon, more than twice the price.

No, Coke is not going to go out of business with my decision to never buy their milk again. But, damn, do I feel like an idiot.

And you're right about other products. That half pound block of cheese is now 6 oz. The 10 tortillas in the package is now 8 or 6. Try to compare so-called premium chocolate in grocery stores. Prices and sizes all over the place (mostly high price and small sizes). Boxes of crackers.

And on and on and on.

Of course, nothing will be done. The only thing we can do is be aware, inform others, and don't be fooled.

Oh, and while we're at it, take a look at bread crumbs and panko crumbs. National brand bread crumbs has a lengthy ingredient list of chemicals. Panko? Wheat. Full stop. Buy wisely.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

58. And a fifth of whisky is now only 750 milliliters.

And a standard 2x4 piece of lumber is not 2" by 4".

A bar of soap now has a concave shape, so it's the same size as before but weighs less.

And I'm down to seeds and stems again, too.

[sl8]

62. To be fair, a fifth is only 757 ml.

So, about a quarter fluid ounce difference.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

63. See? See? This whole "metric" thing is a plot to steal whisky!

Give 'em a centimeter, they'll take a klik.

[Yavin4]

60. A chair is still a chair

even if there's no one sitting there.

[Fla Dem]

61. Oh and another thing, those less than 16oz coffee bags, they're not recyclable.

They're made of some type of foil which at least in my city is not recyclable. So all those bags you see piled up in the grocery store will end up in a landfill. I generally buy coffee in either the plastic or metal container.